Stop the Presses…

… before I do or say one more thing, I have to stop and say…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

…to my number one baker and “French Painter”… Timo.

Since arriving in France he has become an incredible drummer, taken great interest in baking, cooking and making authentic Italian pizza crust from scratch (he rocks). People love being around him and he’s making more friends than he probably realizes. He’s a JOY and we are so proud of this AIMKid!

Today is the actual day but we celebrated with friends earlier in the week because dad teaches at the Bible School today. Incidentally, he is holding a home-made backboard for the basketball net that we picked up in the summer. Our next door neighbour made it for him… how cool is that!?

Youth Convention

Last weekend we were in Melun for the national youth convention (YC). It actually doubles, somewhat, as a European YC since there were people there from Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Estonia, the UK and all over France.

Rev. Chadwick King (Santa Rosa, CA) was the guest speaker and was tremendous. In the top picture you’ll see that I was translating for Bro. King. What an honour to help in the area of translation.

Not only did our kids enjoy being around other youth, but we had a couple of young people with us who were there for the first time. They too enjoyed it much and are already excited to come back next year. Praying at the altar, they were so hungry for the presence of God and the gift of the Holy Ghost: I’ve said it before God is doing a great work in our Sunday School kids!  Thank you Jesus.

Little touch of Holland

We’d been looking forward to meeting fellow AIMers Baron & Jen Carson of Bosier City, Louisiana and it happened at YC (see pic above). They assist at the church in Dordrecht Holland and what a pleasure to serve on AIM with such great folks as them.

If you have an interest in, or burden for, Holland… check out their site: HopeforHolland.com, and consider partnering with them.

Monday Monday…

After a busy YC weekend, followed by a 3.5hr drive back home Sunday night, Monday was a low-key day at home for the most part. Only at around supper time did the whole family venture out together to watch the sunset from the old smoke-stacks at la Manufacture downtown, normally a great vantage point. With winter time now in effect and the sun moving quickly, we actually arrived just after it had set, but still enjoyed getting out in the fresh air together.

We weren’t alone up there however, there happened to be another family… a mom & her two boys who spoke English. We struck up a conversation with them which lasted nearly an hour and a half. They too were an ex-pat family who’d moved to Châtellerault from Melbourne Australia. They’d been here for roughly a year and a half and were homeschooling their kids until just recently when they’d enrolled them in school. In short… there were tons of parallels between our two families (right down to having left behind a flock of backyard chickens!!).

We may have thought we were going down there for a sunset, but I think it was definitely a God-moment and the real purpose of our jaunt down there was for that meet-up. Thank you Lord!

#ParisShootings

I didn’t want to lead off with this, because Timo & all the good things that God is doing take priority.

Nonetheless, many of you reading this will have already heard about the shootings in Paris last night.  As I write this 129 people died in shootings at a famous nightclub, a restaurant and, incredibly the national soccer stadium where France was playing an exhibition game against Germany with the president in attendance.  As a result the city of Paris will largely be “closed for business” today: any place where crowds can gather.  It’s likely not a coincidence, but France resumed passport control at the borders yesterday in the lead-up to the global environmental conference to begin in a few weeks.

Know this: Although I’m in the Paris region for Bible School, I’m some 50km from downtown so quite sheltered. Thank you for those that have emailed, tweeted or inboxed through Facebook.

Do this:  #PrayForParis #PrayForFrance … there is perhaps no day when it is more appropriate to place a call out for prayer for this country. Once again, the nation has been hit at its heart and will be seeking solace. We know the peace-giver.

Everything that happens has SOME-thing to do with the Kingdom of God…pray that God helps us recognize and seize each opportunity in the coming days & weeks.

Pray for France